ALL CLEAR

The last of the rubbish went today, curtesey of a man with a very large van, there were sixty bags, a mattress and a small chest of drawers, as the van drove off I raised a cheer that was probably heard in Windsor, then we staggered back to the house to view the deserted battle field.

Tomorrow the cleaning can commence and once that is done if the cat so much as sheds a hair, or my son a whisker, or Pa a piece of surgical tape for at least a week I shall play Old Harry! During the clearing up I discovered a beautiful cream lampshade crushed under a stack of boxes and about a pound and a half of pot-pourri scattered like confetti, this is what comes of leaving a couple of blokes on there own for five minutes. What the hell, it's over - that's all that matters. After breadmaking and breakfast, I went shopping for a new lamp shade which looks very nice and on the way home I spotted a beautiful mountain ash tree loaded with ripe red berries and I could not resist, I picked a couple of pounds and this afternoon I boiled then for thirty minutes with two pounds of cooking apples skins and all.

Once they were pulpy I put them in a scalded jelly bag and left then to strain overnight. Tomorrow the clear juice will be boiled for about fifteen minutes with sugar, one pound to every pint of juice and then poured in to sterile bottles. The jelly this produces is wonderful at Christmas with cold turkey or pork, with venison it is fantastic. Our breakfast guests were detained by some business so they will come tomorrow instead it turned out to be for the best as we were all shattered this morning. Dinner tonight was chicken pomadori for my son and bacon and eggs for Pa and myself with tomatoes and hogs pudding, diet be blowed !

My poor boy is so tired after his week of decorating and it's back to work tonight, as he has had no sleep today he will be like a zombie by tomorrow morning. It is an odd thing that he loves working night shift, but I worry about him all the same, quite a few members of my family worked permanent night shifts so it must be in the blood, some of us have fangs as well, it makes me wonder about our ancestry! Speaking for myself I shall be glad to curl up in my bed tonight, I have done enough flapping about lately to last a life time.